Discussions By Condition: Medical Stories

obscure irritation of eyelids

I was hoping someone could tell me what's going on under my eyelids. For over 6 years, I have had air under my eyelids in the form of minuscule bubbles. I can begin to close my eyelids and look to the upper left, and squeeze the bubbles out with a loud click. After I do this there are immediately more air bubbles; the sensation never goes away. Sometimes I can just look upwards and the air bubbles come out of the area around my tear ducts with a much louder sound. The air bubbles do not come from inside my tear ducts.

My optometrist said to me a couple years ago that it was a symptom of seasonal allergies. She flipped my eylids and told me they were covered with tiny bumps. According to her, the space between them fills up with air, and I squeeze it out. This makes logical sense, but the symptoms are not seasonal, they are daily. She prescribed me Allegra or something, which I took for a few months and discontinued after it produced no results.

The problem is aggravated when I am tired or get high. It has also become a compulsion--when I feel the bubbles there, I "click" them out over and over again, until my eyes are dry or something distracts me. I can't stop this; I do it for hours a day, and I feel ridiculous. I know that it is harmless and petty, it's just that six years of living with this consistent irritation is enough. Would any optometrist take me seriously, or is this too meaningless?